Paying in forward, naming your wind and dissolving hands…

I found a great blog recently of a fellow expat from New Zealand…KiwiGirlAttemptingItalian and I was inspired by her recent “Pay it Forward” post. It’s basically a scheme to get people doing more nice things for each other. Here’s the blurb, sneakily copied word for word from KiwiGirl!

“I’m participating in the “Pay it Forward” Initiative: The first five people to comment with “I’m in” will receive an absolutely brilliant surprise from me at some point during the calendar year of 2015 – anything from a book, a ticket, something homemade, a postcard, absolutely any surprise!

There will be no warning, and it will happen when the time is right and I will find something that I believe would suit you (after reading your blogs) and make you laugh (or smile).

But there is a catch – you must make the same offer to five other people. :)”

So is anyone in? Write “I’m in” in the comment box below!

Visit

I had friends to stay this weekend – I had a lovely time with them and discovered a new walk and a little garage museum! We were just passing in the middle of nowhere (it’ll be interesting to see if I can locate this place ever again) and a guy invited us into his garage to see his Beetle and wow, this man collects everything. Not only was there a perfectly preserved Beetle, but farming equipment from decades ago, motorbikes, cameras, radios, clocks, gramophones… It was all perfectly laid out and he enthusiastically went through most of it!

Some of the farming stuff…

One can never have too many clocks and we even had a demonstration of the gramophone. It was great – and nothing like listening to a crystal clear and somewhat un-atmospheric CD!

The Beetle looks in better condition than my Nanmobile.

Beautiful landscapes

And more beautiful landscapes….

Le Rocce

I think it’s called Le Rocce at least- who knows?! Nobody seems to know about it, but for ages I’ve been driving past the mountains wondering what the rocks are that are sticking up – it looked like an old ruin. So this week I went to investigate.

It looked like they might be doing some work in there… I feel though it’s a bit of a challenging restoration project.

It does look majestic though. I would love to have seen it back in its day.

As pleased as I was to finally see these ruins, I was much more thrilled to see this little creature – a black squirrel! In fact, the woods here are devoid of squirrels in general – contrary to UK woodland, so what a pleasant surprise!

It’s definitely moving towards Spring – the weather has been a bit warmer, and you can hear the scuttle of lizards now when you walk anywhere outside. Having said that, it’s due to snow tomorrow and Friday so perhaps the last week or so has been an anomaly!

Garbino Winds

I’ve been learning about wind this week. It’s been windy here before and the neighbours call it the “Tramontana wind” but a couple of days ago, it was a different league entirely. It was scarily strong. There’s been trees knocked down, landslides and avalanches. They called this one the “Garbino wind” because it was warm. I thought it was a cute local thing; naming winds for goodness sake. But I’ve researched it and it’s a real thing! The Garbino wind comes from Africa which is why it’s so warm. Anyway, it was an interesting, blustery and slightly nerve-wracking day as I waited inside to see if my roof would stay on! On the plus side, my washing dried in about 15 minutes as opposed to 4 days sitting on a clothes horse upstairs (Admittedly I had to go and collect the washing that had been dispersed within the surrounding area)!

DIY

I’ve been continuing on the DIY streak but have had to take a short break whilst my hands recover! The stuff you use to plaster with has some sort of skin-eating nastiness in it and I’d spent all day with it on my hands trying to build a corner to my wall and fill in some gaps above the beams.

I’m quite pleased with it. It’s quite difficult to build a corner.

I think that about sums up the last few days! I hope you’re all having good weeks.

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Hi Sue
Sigh, it’s just like having a holiday in Italy reading your blog….!! Lovely.
Lucky you not seeing many of those pesky (though admittedly cute) squirrels. I lived near Force (so yes, have been to the beautiful Sarnano many a time, love the drive from there into the mountains) & the squirrels there used to strip the walnut trees bare…. grrrr! My husband did take to them with a slingshot but without success (for us, not the squirrel).
The theatre in Amandola looks gorgeous. I am constantly amazed at all these tiny towns in Italy that have ornate theatres tucked away behind fairly ordinary looking doors. I showed my husband the pics of the theatre and he was impressed – but more impressed by your kitchen renovation! It does look great, well done.
Your bread looks great too. I am just about to make my first loaves for weeks – Australia is great but we’ve had endless days of 35deg plus and that’s not so good for baking!
Looking forward to the next Le Marche adventure, hope you don’t get snowed in!
Cheers
Melanie

Sorry about the incredibly tardy response! If I don’t respond immediately I end up losing messages! Anyway, thank you for your comment 🙂 I’m really glad you like the blog. I’ve not been to Force yet? I’ll have to visit. There’s a chance I’ll be going back to the UK for a bit in July so I want to see as many local places as I can before that. Any other suggestions welcome! I went to the theatre in Sarnano at the weekend – another dinky little theatre – always with lots of boxes. I feel very elegant going to the theatre in Italy! Not quite as ornate as Amandola but really quite cute. Ha! You’d be less impressed with the renovation work if you saw it up close and personal but it’s quite satisfying doing it all the same 🙂

I can see that baking in that kind of heat doesn’t seem like an attractive option! Perhaps you should be going down the Italian ice-cream making route instead 😉